US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this Wednesday that the United States and China have achieved “strategic stability” in relations, marked by prolonged tensions.
“I think we have achieved at least a kind of strategic stability in our relations,” Rubio told reporters ahead of US President Donald Trump’s scheduled visit to Beijing in late March.
The head of North American diplomacy considered, during a trip to the Caribbean, that both countries concluded that a total global trade war between Washington and Beijing would be “profoundly damaging” for both parties and the rest of the world.
Marco Rubio and Donald Trump have considered China a strategic adversary at the international level.
Rubio stressed, however, that the United States will continue to remain cautious towards Beijing and seek to diversify supply chains in order to reduce dependence on China.
He also committed to continuing efforts to get China to agree to negotiate a tripartite nuclear agreement with the United States and Russia.
A senior North American official met this week in Geneva with Russian and Chinese counterparts, following the end of validity of the New START treaty on nuclear arms control.
Washington also called for the launch of multilateral negotiations that include China.
“They have said publicly that they don’t want to do it,” Rubio said, referring to Beijing.
“But we will continue to press, because we believe that it would be positive for everyone to reach an agreement of this nature,” he added.
Russia and the United States have by far the largest nuclear arsenals in the world, although China’s is growing rapidly.
Donald Trump is expected to travel to China at the end of March, in what will be his first visit to the country since the beginning of his second term.
Marco Rubio indicated that he intends to accompany the President. In 2020, when he was a senator, he was the target of sanctions imposed by Beijing due to his support for human rights in Hong Kong and the Chinese minority of Uighur Muslim origin.
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